Category Archives: Reading

Post navigation

I slammed the foyer door behind me and unlocked the door to my apartment. Beezle and Samiel hadn’t followed me in. I wondered what they were doing.

I wondered what Lucifer had planned now.

I hung up my coat, took off my boots and realized I’d left the groceries out in the snow. A second later Samiel and Beezle came in. Samiel carried the grocery bags into the kitchen, patting me on the shoulder as he went by.

I looked at Beezle. “What’s Lucifer up to?”

Beezle shrugged. “It is not for me to comprehend the ways of the Morningstar.”

“He had to know that I wouldn’t accept Nathaniel,” I said. “Why send him here?”

“Lucifer has to be thinking of the child,” Beezle said. “He wants the baby protected.”

I looked at Beezle incredulously. “And you think that Lucifer thought Nathaniel was the best choice to protect a child he will no doubt despise because of its parentage?”

Beezle shook his head slowly as the smells of something cooking came from the kitchen. Samiel was getting pretty good at turning a small amount of ingredients into something delicious.

“No. I think that Lucifer presented an unappealing option that he knows you’ll refuse out of hand so that he can then send you the person that he really wants here.”

I nodded. It made sense. It was exactly the way Lucifer operated.

“And his leniency toward Nathaniel is no doubt dependent on Nathaniel’s ability to get me to cooperate,” I said.

“Which is why Nathaniel is still on the porch,” Beezle said. “He said he’ll sleep there if he has to.”

I thought about calling the cops to remove him, but Nathaniel would just return over and over again until he got what he wanted. I didn’t believe that he cared about me one whit. I knew for sure that he cared about keeping all his body parts in their proper places, and that meant that he would go to any lengths to please Lucifer.

Fine. He could stay on the porch if he wanted. I hoped he froze to death.

“Maybe you should think about accepting Nathaniel,” Beezle said thoughtfully.

I stared at him. “That’s the second insane thing you’ve told me to do tonight. First I’m to make a pact with Lucifer; now I’m supposed to accept Nathaniel?”

“Think about it,” Beezle said urgently. “You’d have leverage with Nathaniel. You could use him to find out what Lucifer is up to. Plus, you’d definitely throw the Morningstar a loop if you accept a bodyguard he was certain you’d reject.”

“Nathaniel is a killer,” I said heatedly.

“So are you.”

“I didn’t kill innocents. And I don’t try to justify anything I did saying I was under orders from someone else.”

“Nathaniel can’t help that,” Beezle said, shaking his head. “It’s something you never understood about Gabriel either. You’ve never submitted to anyone’s authority in your life—not your mother, not me, not your Agency supervisors, not your teachers at school. You were born contrary.”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing. I’m an independent thinker.”

“Or, depending on one’s perspective, you’re a stubborn mule, but that’s not the point. The point is that you’ve never understood why angels don’t contradict their master, why they follow orders that would seem unreasonable to you. It’s because they’ve had respect for the hierarchy drilled into them from birth. They’ve been taught to be unquestioning, to do what they’re told even if it’s something a human would consider morally wrong.”

“So they’ve been brainwashed?” I said skeptically.

Beezle sighed. “No. Think of them as soldiers in an army. A soldier might doubt the validity of a commander’s order, but that soldier would still do as his commander said. Because that’s the way he’s made. That’s the way he’s been taught to behave, because an army is not made up of one person. Its strength comes from the sum of its parts.”

“So all the angels are taught to do as they’re told because it’s so important for each court to preserve its base of power.”

“Yes,” Beezle replied. “It’s also why rebellion is never initiated from the bottom. Most of the lower hierarchy could never conceive of going against Lucifer. But Azazel and Focalor are both Grigori. They have their own courts. They are used to answering only to Lucifer, and in recent years it seems he has given them more leeway.”

“But why?” I asked. “You told me once that Lucifer would do anything to maintain his base of power. And Gabriel once said that he thought Lucifer had enough power to have dominion over all things.”

“I’m pretty sure he does,” Beezle replied.

“Then why loosen his grip?” I wondered.

“To see what would happen,” Beezle said. “To see who is truly loyal to him.”

I scowled. I really disliked the idea that Lucifer would allow a rebellion to fester just so he could watch the game play out. I was also disturbed by the idea that Nathaniel might not be entirely at fault for his part in the memory-selling enterprise. He wasn’t completely blameless, not by a long shot, but it seemed it would have been difficult for Nathaniel to refuse Azazel.

He had tried to kill me in Azazel’s court. But he had also helped us save Wade’s cubs.

I shook my head. I didn’t know what to do about Nathaniel right now. It seemed too complicated to sort out what was right and what was wrong, and that worried me. Those shades of gray were Lucifer’s provenance.

Samiel came into the dining room carrying a tray full of food. He set three bowls on the table.

“Yum, chili!” Beezle said, diving toward his portion.

“Use a spoon,” I said before he went headfirst into the bowl. “You’re not a pig at the trough.”

Beezle muttered crossly to himself, but he perched on the edge of the bowl with a spoon held in his fist. He scooped chili into his beak with the rapidity and care of a toddler just beginning to use utensils. Food dribbled from his mouth to his stomach.

Don’t look at him, Samiel signed. You’ll lose your appetite.

I try not to look at him generally, I replied.

Samiel went back into the kitchen and returned with a plate of corn bread and three glasses of milk. He indicated I should sit down across from him, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

“This looks great,” I said.

I wondered where he had found all the ingredients in my very bare kitchen. I was pretty certain I hadn’t bought all of this stuff with Beezle, so I asked Samiel.

I had most of the stuff downstairs, he signed, pausing between bites.

His bowl was almost empty already, and I’d had only a small taste. Samiel eats like a teenage boy who’s not sure where his next meal is going to come from.

“But where did you get the money for the groceries?” I wondered aloud.

Lucifer gave it to me.

I raised my eyebrow at that.

He knows that I don’t work, and he was worried about you because he knows you depend on the rent from the apartment.

“Yeah, I’ll just bet he was worried,” I muttered into my chili so that Samiel couldn’t read my lips.

Everywhere I looked Lucifer was there, entangling me in his spider’s web. I knew Samiel was loyal to me, but I also knew that Lucifer was very good at making simple things look confusing.

If Samiel continued to accept an allowance from Lucifer, then one day in the future the Morningstar might come to Samiel asking for a favor. And Samiel might think that one little favor was small repayment to the angel who had given him so much. Then Lucifer would ask for one more thing, and another, and another, until Samiel was well and truly trapped.

“Aren’t you eating?” Beezle asked, breaking my reverie.

I glanced over at him and wished I hadn’t. He was covered in chili from horn to claw and was presently stuffing corn bread in his beak. The bread crumbs sprayed everywhere as he chewed. I covered my eyes.

“I don’t know why, but I seem to have lost my appetite,” I said loudly.

“More for me,” Beezle said gleefully.

Samiel pried my hands from my face so I could look at him.

You have to eat, he signed.

Do you know about the baby, too?

He nodded, looking rueful. Beezle told me.

Listen, Samiel, I signed. Do you want to work?

He looked uncertain. Yes, but Lucifer said I wouldn’t be able to get a regular job, because I can’t hide my wings like you can.

“It’s nice that he’s thought of everything,” I mumbled to myself, then looked at Samiel and spoke. “You could work at the Agency. There are a lot of supernatural creatures working for us that aren’t Agents.”

But I thought you didn’t get paid?

“I don’t. Agents don’t because collecting souls is a ‘sacred duty,’” I said, making air quotes with my fingers. “But the support staff and the management collect regular paychecks. Don’t ask me where the Agency gets its funding from, though. That’s apparently need-to-know only.”

Do you really think I could work there? Samiel looked doubtful.

“Sure. I’ll talk to J.B. about it.” As I said this, it occurred to me that I hadn’t picked up any souls for a couple of days, and I wondered if I had been neglecting my sacred duty while wandering around in a depressed fog.

“Before you start panicking,” Beezle said, reading my thoughts, “you should know that J.B. called a few days ago and said he was reassigning all of your pickups for the next week.”

“Do you think you could actually deliver my messages in a timely manner?” I said. “Or, better yet, don’t pick up the phone at all and let the answering machine fulfill the purpose for which it was created.”

“What?” Beezle said. “You’re getting the message now.”

“That’s not the point,” I began, and trailed off. The snake tattoo on my right palm tingled. I stood up. I’d learned not to ignore Lucifer’s mark.

Lucifer put his arm around me. It felt comforting, like the act of a parent, a parent I’d always wanted—a father. The air filled with the scent of cinnamon. It reminded me so strongly of Gabriel that the tears that always hovered beneath the surface spilled over.

Lucifer said nothing, only held me as I wept. After a long while, it felt like there were no more tears to be cried. I lifted my head and saw Lucifer watching me with great compassion in his eyes.

“If there is one human emotion I truly comprehend, it is grief,” Lucifer said. “I lost Evangeline and my children so long ago, and I never stopped grieving for them.”

“So it doesn’t stop hurting, then,” I said dully.

“The pain becomes, perhaps, not quite so sharp. In the future, you may find that days may pass when you do not think of him at all, but when you do there will be a tenderness there, like a bruise that has never healed.”

I didn’t need Lucifer to tell me that. A piece of me had been taken forever when Gabriel died. You can’t replace the missing parts of your heart.

Lucifer released me. I felt lost again, empty, except for the flame that burned bright with anger at the thought of Azazel. He would not be able to run far enough.

“Still, all is not lost. Gabriel lives on inside you,” Lucifer said.

“Yes, I’ve heard all the clichés,” I sighed. Beezle and Samiel had been repeating them ad nauseam .

“No, I mean Gabriel really does live on inside you,” Lucifer said. “Here.”

He put his hand on my abdomen, and I looked up in shock.

Far below, deep inside, I felt it.

The beating of tiny wings.

A child. Gabriel’s child. Wonder smothered the grief, just for a moment.

“My grandchild,” Lucifer said.

There was such possessiveness in his voice, in his face, that I pulled away from his touch, covering my stomach with my hands.

“So that’s why you wanted me to marry Gabriel,” I said angrily. “So I can be a part of your supernatural breeding program?”

“That sounds so . . . indelicate,” Lucifer said.

“And yet still true,” I said.

Lucifer didn’t bother to acknowledge this. Instead, he said, “You and Gabriel are powerful beings born of my line. Your child, no doubt, will be magnificent.”

“You can’t have him,” I said fiercely. “He’s mine.”

Mine and Gabriel’s.

Lucifer took me by the shoulders and kissed me on the forehead. I stayed perfectly still, my hands fisted at my sides, until he released me.

“Careful, my dear. Every time you try to cross me you just get pulled further into my orbit.”

He climbed down the steps of my front porch and walked away down the snow-covered sidewalk. I watched him until he was out of sight, his words echoing inside my head.

Every time you try to cross me you just get pulled further into my orbit.

It was true that I hadn’t managed to beat Lucifer at his game yet. It was also true that when I tried, something horrible would happen, like my being named the Hound of the Hunt.

But I was not going to let Lucifer use my child as part of his plan for total world domination. I was not going to let Lucifer take my last piece of Gabriel away.

Gabriel.

I felt my shoulders sagging, the familiar weariness settling on me. I wanted to go to sleep, which was pretty much all I’d wanted to do since Azazel had killed Gabriel right in front of me.

I went back inside, locked the front door and climbed the steps up to my apartment. Beezle and Samiel were nowhere to be seen, which meant that they were probably in Samiel’s apartment downstairs watching a movie.

I took off the coat that Lucifer had given me. For half a second I contemplated folding it up and tossing it in the trash, but practicality won. Both of my coats had been ruined in various battles with monsters, and I was too broke to afford a new one. On my best day I couldn’t have bought a coat as nice as this.

I hung the coat up carefully by the back door and wandered down the hall to the kitchen. The idea of a nap suddenly had less appeal. I didn’t want to climb in bed and find myself lying awake thinking about Gabriel or about ways to keep Lucifer from taking my baby.

My baby.

How was I supposed to raise a baby? I was surrounded by enemies who tried to kill me on a regular basis. The only reason I was still alive and hadn’t died of my injuries yet was because Gabriel had been around to heal me.

And now he wasn’t. And I was back to where I’d started, the place I was always trying to escape but found that I circled back to, endlessly.

Azazel’s sword in Gabriel’s chest. Gabriel falling to the ground.

I was on my knees, my arms wrapped around my body, trying to stop the pain that never left me, the grief that hung over me like a cloud.

I put my cheek on the cold tile floor and closed my eyes, hoping I would not dream of Gabriel’s blood in the snow.

I woke to the insistent tapping of a little gargoyle hand on my cheek.

“Maddy, wake up,” Beezle said.

My eyes felt glued shut. My chest hurt, like I’d run a long way taking gasping breaths of air.

I didn’t open my eyes or sit up. “Go away, Beezle.”

“You need to eat something,” Beezle said.

“It won’t hurt me to lose a few pounds,” I mumbled.

“No, but it will hurt your baby.”

I opened my eyes. It was dark in the kitchen. Light streamed in the back window from the streetlamp in the alley behind my building. Beezle sat frowning on the floor in front of my face.

“How do you know about the baby?” I asked. My voice sounded rusty and unused.

“Gargoyles can see the true nature of things,” he said gently. “I’ve known since the morning after your wedding night.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” I said, sitting up slowly. I was tired right into my bones.

It was hard to know how to feel about that. Gabriel had probably figured out immediately that I was pregnant, just as Lucifer had. But he hadn’t told me.

“Will all the fallen know as soon as they see me?” I asked.

Beezle shook his head. “They can sense children of their own line. Lucifer, especially, is sensitive to the presence of children of his blood. Evangeline would never have been able to disguise Lucifer’s children from him without Michael’s help.”

Evangeline, my crazy ancestor who’d started everything by falling in love with Lucifer millennia ago. She’d been kidnapped by Lucifer’s enemies while pregnant with his children. The archangel Michael had found Evangeline and convinced her that he could keep the twins safe from her lover’s enemies. Michael had covered Lucifer’s presence so thoroughly that the Morningstar never found the children of Evangeline, or the descendants of those children. Until he found me, daughter of Katherine Black, last direct descendant of Evangeline’s line.

He had other offspring, of course. I didn’t know how many. Two of his sons had been insane monsters, and they’d both tried to kill me. I wasn’t in a big hurry to meet any more of Lucifer’s progeny.

“Wouldn’t Azazel have known I was pregnant?” I asked. “I am of his line, too.”

“If he knew, it would only have made him angrier than he already was about your marriage,” Beezle said. “He was never happy with your inability to fall in line.”

“I wasn’t very interested in being a good little soldier for a father who never acted like one,” I snapped.

“And you don’t need to get angry with me about it,” Beezle said mildly. “I’m on your side.”

I rubbed my forehead in the place where a headache was starting to form. “I’m sorry, Beezle. I just . . . I don’t know what to do.”

“About what?”

“About anything,” I said. “I just want to go to sleep and never wake up. I don’t want to face the day. I don’t want to get up in the morning knowing that Gabriel’s not here.”

I was crying again. I couldn’t seem to stop.

“And the baby?” Beezle looked very grave.

“There is a part of me that’s happy,” I said, wiping my face. “A small part. But the bigger part of me is scared, because I know that if I live long enough to deliver this child, he will have a target on his back for the rest of his life. Every enemy that Lucifer has will be after this baby.”

When I thought about it that way, my future looked overwhelming. Was I ever to have a normal relationship with this child, or would I always be on the run, always fending off new threats?

“You’ve got to secure a future for the baby now,” Beezle said. “You can’t wait until the demons are at your door. You have to find a way to make sure he is protected.”

I stared at him. “Are you suggesting what I think you’re suggesting?”

“Make a pact with Lucifer,” he said. “Now, while you can still dictate your own terms.”

“I can’t believe you’re telling me this,” I said. “You know that I don’t want to be another one of Lucifer’s pawns. Besides, he wants the baby for himself. I can’t trust him.”

“No, you can’t trust him,” Beezle said. “But if you wait until you have no other option for the child’s safety, then Lucifer will make you pay more dearly than you can imagine.”

“Did you have to tell me this today?” I said tiredly. “Don’t I have enough to worry about already?”

“Your problems won’t go away just because you want to put a pillow over your head and pretend they’re not there,” Beezle said.

“You don’t have to tell me that,” I said grimly. “My problems never seem to go away no matter what I do. They just grow and multiply like gremlins.”

We both sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating the sad truth of this statement. Every time I attempted to extricate myself from the fallen, I found that I’d gained more enemies and more entanglements than I had before.

Subtlety is not my best thing. Politics requires a delicate hand. Those qualities are stock-in-trade for the fallen. I’m more of a hack-and-slash-and-then-burn-it-all-to-the-ground kind of girl.

I pushed to my feet, and Beezle fluttered up to the kitchen counter. I stood there for a moment, feeling lost.

“Food,” Beezle reminded me.

“Yes, food,” I said.

I opened the refrigerator door and looked in. There was absolutely nothing in it—not even a jar of mayonnaise.

“When was the last time I went shopping?” I wondered.

“The day that you and Gabriel followed Amarantha’s ghost to the park,” Beezle said.

“Well, that was . . . a while ago,” I thought, trying to count backward and failing. “I guess I have to go to the store.”

“And I’ll come with you,” Beezle said.

“Okay,” I mumbled.

“What? No protest? No smart remark about my being a home guardian?” Beezle asked.

“You can come if you want,” I said tiredly. I couldn’t think of any smart remarks. I just wanted to get through this task so that I could eat something and go back to sleep.

I shuffled down the hall, pulled on my boots and coat, stuffed some cash in my pocket.

“Are you coming?” I asked, turning to Beezle.

He hovered in the hallway, watching me with an indefinable expression on his face.

“You can’t wander around in a fog like this forever,” he said.

“I know,” I said softly.

I did know. Sooner or later, the world would come knocking at my door. Sooner or later, some enemy would appear, some new threat would manifest, and I’d have to wake the hell up and deal with it. But not now. Not yet.

“Let’s go,” I said.

Beezle landed on my shoulder, and we went out the door without another word.

Beezle took advantage of my total lack of energy and convinced me that we needed a lot of junk food that neither one of us should be eating. I was too tired to argue so I just bought whatever he pointed at, paid for it and trudged home.

I had my head down, watching my boots pushing through the snow, and wasn’t thinking of anything in particular except more sleep.

We were almost to the front porch when Beezle tapped me on the shoulder.

“Maddy,” he said. His voice was urgent.

I looked up. There was a figure standing in the shadows on the front porch. Someone tall, wearing an overcoat . . .

“Gabriel?” I said, my heart thundering in my chest.

“No,” the person said, and stepped into the light.

It was Nathaniel.

“You,” I snarled.

I dropped the grocery bags in the snow and charged up the steps. Nathaniel put his arms up in the air, stepped backward, but he was too slow and I was too angry.

I put my shoulder into his stomach, heard his hard exhalation as the breath went out of him. I tackled him down to the porch, kneeling with my legs on either side of his chest, and punched him in the face.

“You,” I repeated. All I could see was Nathaniel’s face under a haze of red.

I felt him struggle, try to push me off, but his arms were locked tight against the side of his body. He should have been able to move me. He was an angel, and I was only a half-blood. But I had a strength I’d never had before, a strength fueled by rage and betrayal.

My hands closed around his throat, squeezing tight. I pushed at the fragile accordion of his trachea, wanting to crush it to a pulp, wanting to kill him once and for all.

“Maddy!” Beezle shouted, but his voice sounded far away.

“Maddy, you’re going to kill him!”

“Yes,” I whispered, and when I looked at Nathaniel’s purpling face I saw Azazel’s malicious grin as he pushed his sword into Gabriel’s heart.

Those same arms surrounded me, pulled me from Nathaniel, carried me backward as I kicked and screamed like a madwoman.

“Samiel, no!” I shouted. “Put me down! Let me be!”

I felt Samiel shaking his head behind me. His arms tightened. Beezle fluttered in front of me. Nathaniel coughed, gasping for air.

“Maddy, you have to calm down,” Beezle said.

“I will not calm down!” I screamed. “I want him dead!”

“He didn’t kill Gabriel,” Beezle said. “He’s not Azazel.”

“No,” I spat. “He’s Azazel’s lackey. He sold people’s memories to vampires. He sold children’s memories. He knew Azazel was planning to rebel against Lucifer. And he tried to kill me the last time we saw him; do you remember?”

“He’s a cockroach, I agree. But if you kill him like this, you’ll never forgive yourself,” he said.

Nathaniel got to his feet, rubbing his throat. The sight of him made me furious all over again.

“You’d better run,” I said, struggling against Samiel’s grip. “Because when I get down I’m going to finish what I started.”

“I will not run,” he said. “I came to speak with you.”

“I’m not sure this is the best time,” Beezle said to Nathaniel. “She seems a little . . . unreasonable right now.”

“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here,” I said. “I’m not a child.”

“Then cease behaving like one,” Nathaniel said.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “You’re not doing yourself any favors here, pal. What did you come here for?”

“I told you, to speak with you.”

His calm demeanor was making me angrier, which hardly seemed possible. There was a well of rage inside me that I had barely tapped. I’d been so foggy with grief that I’d forgotten how furious I was until I saw Nathaniel.

“How can you stand there like that, arrogant as ever? How can you stand there and pretend that you’ve done nothing wrong?” I said.

“Because I have spoken with Lord Lucifer and atoned.”

I froze, blank with shock. “You . . . what? You spoke to Lucifer and he didn’t strike you down on the spot? You participated in Azazel’s rebellion!”

“I had no other choice,” Nathaniel said icily. “Azazel was my master, the lord of my court. I must do as I am bid.”

“That’s a really convenient load of bullshit,” I said. “You had choices. You could have chosen to go to Lucifer when you had foreknowledge of the rebellion. You could have saved the lives of the people that were killed before you sucked their memories from them. You could have done a hundred things differently and in the end you chose to do exactly what you were told even if you knew that it was wrong.”

“If I had defied Azazel, I would have paid for it with my life,” Nathaniel said. His voice had an undercurrent of anger.

“So you chose your own worthless skin over the lives of innocents,” I said, letting my contempt show on my face.

“Regardless of my past actions —” he began.

“Your past actions are very relevant,” I said.

“Will you allow me to complete a sentence?” Nathaniel said angrily.

I’d finally cracked his icy façade. Yay for me.

“No,” I spat. “You deserve no courtesy from me.”

“Last time you saw her you did call her ‘hell’s own bitch,’” Beezle pointed out.

“Lord Lucifer has heard my plea and accepted me as a part of his court,” Nathaniel said.

“What you mean is that Azazel’s plan didn’t go the way he intended, and he abandoned you, so you were forced to crawl to someone else,” I said.

“You have never respected me,” Nathaniel said, his eyes sparking furiously in the light from the streetlamps .

“No, I haven’t,” I said. “I don’t see why I should have to.”

“You were my betrothed.”

“Do not bring up that farce of an engagement again,” I said through my teeth.

“It was not a farce to me,” he said. “When Azazel told me that you had married the thrall . . .”

He looked lost suddenly, vulnerable in a way that I had never seen him before. But his reference to my husband as “the thrall” set me off again.

“That’s why I could never respect you. Because you cleave to this ridiculous notion that you were better than Gabriel.”

“I was,” Nathaniel said. “You were the only one who could not comprehend what an insult it was for you to marry one such as him.”

I thought I’d reached maximum rage, but apparently I was wrong.

“Get off my porch. Leave this city and never come back.”

“That will be extremely difficult,” Nathaniel said, icicles dripping from every word, “as Lord Lucifer has bid me protect you as my penance.”

“No,” I said, pushing at Samiel’s arms so he would release me. “No.”

Samiel tightened his grip, and I turned to look up at him. He cocked his head, asking me with eyes, Can I trust you?

“I won’t attack him,” I said. “I promise.”

Samiel looked like he wasn’t sure.

“I won’t,” I said again, and he let me go.

I marched up to Nathaniel, who took a half step back. Good. He’d better be afraid of me.

“Now, hear this,” I said softly. “I don’t care what Lucifer says. I will never submit to this.”

“Lord Lucifer has said that I am to protect you,” Nathaniel said tightly. “That, I will do.”

“And the first time your life might be threatened you’ll run away with your tail between your legs. I can take care of myself, and that ought to be abundantly clear by now,” I said with a pointed glance at his still-bruised throat. Angels heal fast, so I must have really damaged him for the marks to still show.

“You cannot refuse Lord Lucifer,” Nathaniel said, and there was a touch of desperation in his voice.

I had a feeling a lot was riding on his ability to get me to cooperate. Too bad.

In the interest of making the wait easier (or harder, I guess, depending on your point of view), here’s the first chapter of Black Night, to be released July 26th:

CHAPTER ONE

I stood in the alley between Damen and Wolcott in the recently trendy neighborhood of Wicker Park. There was a parking lot filled with cars directly across the alley from my position. It was bordered on the other three sides by four-story apartment buildings. Behind the wall that I leaned on the clubs, bars and restaurants of Division Street did a brisk trade in liquor and lust for the upscale singles that had purchased all the new condos in the area. The cold November night was no deterrent to business. After all, if you lived in Chicago then you understood that there are only two seasons – winter and construction. If you let a little cold slow you down then you should probably move somewhere else.
I shifted a little, flexing my toes inside my boots in a vain effort to keep them warm. When I had died and been reborn a month ago, my human heart had been replaced by an angel’s heartstone. As a result, I was usually a little warmer on average than ordinary human beings, since angels’ hearts are made of the sun. But a half-angel’s body is still no match for the Windy City.
My gargoyle Beezle poked his head out of the lapel of my wool peacoat. He’s the color of stone, about the size of an overweight guinea pig and he’s got little wings, the better to flap around my head and annoy me with.
Before we had left the house he had trimmed a child-size scarf for his own use. He had a small strip of rainbow-colored wool wrapped around each horn and a longer piece wound several times around his lower face. The edge of his beak poked through the material. He mumbled something through the cloth and I glared at him.
“I can’t understand you when your mouth is buried like that,” I said.
Beezle narrowed his cats’ eyes at me and commenced unwinding his muffler. He huffed melodramatically before speaking. “I said, have you got anything to eat?”
“How can you possibly be hungry? You ate a whole bowl of popcorn before we left the house.”
“But I am. And I’m cold. And I want a doughnut,” he whined.
“Stop wriggling. We’re supposed to be undercover here. In point of fact, you’re not supposed to be here at all. You’re supposed to be at home, being a home guardian, like all the other gargoyles.”
“Do you think I would trust your life to him?” Beezle snapped.
“He can hear you, gargoyle,” Gabriel said drily.
My tenant and bodyguard, Gabriel, had been so quiet I’d almost forgotten he was there. Almost. He’s a little difficult to overlook – 6 foot plus, dark hair, dark eyes, the face of an angel. I mean that literally. Gabriel was half-angel.
Have I mentioned that I am in love with him and he with me, and that our love is doomed, in a really melodramatic we-will-both-be-killed-if-ever-act-on-our-feelings sort of way?
I’m a half angel, too. My father is Azazel, a fallen angel and a chief of the Grigori, a right-hand man of Lucifer himself. I’d discovered this tidbit only recently, having spent most of my life believing my father to be an ordinary deadbeat (or possibly dead) human dad.
Beezle had been a little unreasonable about my safety ever since I’d had my human heart torn out by a nephilim – long story – and now refused to let me leave the house without him. You’d think the fact that I’d managed to come back from the dead would count in my favor.
Azazel’s orders stated that Gabriel was not supposed to leave my side when I was out of the house. I had spent the last month with a beautiful bodyguard at my elbow and an overweight gargoyle hanging off me like a baby orangutan. It was making my job a little difficult – very difficult, in fact. It’s not easy being unobtrusive with those two around.
When I’m not Azazel’s daughter and Beezle’s doughnut enabler, I’m an Agent of death. It’s not as glamorous as it sounds. Every week I get a list of names, places and times. I go to the appointed place at the appointed time, pick up the soul and bring it to the Door. At the Door the soul chooses whether to pass on to whatever is behind the Door (don’t ask me, I’m not allowed to know) or to stay and haunt the earth forever.
Most of the time my job is as straightforward as it sounds. I’m kind of like a UPS delivery guy. I don’t know what’s in the boxes and I don’t care. It’s just my job to deliver them on time and to the correct location. I also have to file paperwork – lots and lots of paperwork, and the forms are annoying and redundant. Being an Agent of Death isn’t such a great gig, really, but it’s an inherited job (I got mine when my mom died) and one that doesn’t go away until you take the trip to the Door yourself.
So there I was, a week before Thanksgiving, shivering in 30-degree weather and thinking longingly of my crocheted blankets and a cup of hot chocolate, and waiting to pick up a soul who was scheduled to die at 1:27am somewhere in this alley.
Beezle carefully rewrapped his scarf around his chubby neck. It draped over his wings in the back.
“I hope that this isn’t one of those disgusting alley murders,” he said conversationally. “The last one put me off my feed.”
“Is that even possible?” Gabriel murmured for my ears only, and I smiled. Then I straightened a little, pushing away from the wall. Gabriel came to attention beside me. “What is it?”
“I don’t think you have to worry about hacked-up body parts this time, Beezle,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I can see the vampire.” I nodded at the innocuous-looking man making his way across the parking lot.
He looked like any moderately successful single guy out on a Saturday night. His hair was blonde and stylishly cut, his clothes were good without being flashy, and his face was sort of ordinary-handsome. You wouldn’t know he was a vampire, which is good for their kind. The most successful hunters are the ones with the best camouflage.
He crossed out of the lot and into the alley, his footsteps slowing as he approached us. We were tucked unobtrusively in a little four-foot depression in the building, one of those architectural oddities that seem to have no explanation. The building went straight across and then it dipped in, like someone had planned to put a closet there, and then resumed its normal course. It was just enough to keep us from being seen by anyone who passed by.
The vampire stopped dead, a few feet away. I saw his nostrils flare.
“I know you’re there, Agent,” he said.
I stepped out of the depression and into the light of the one yellow streetlamp that hung over the parking lot. Gabriel followed and stood behind my shoulder. I said nothing. The vampire’s eyes widened a little when his saw Gabriel.
He smirked. “You must be the famous Madeline Black, the only Agent with a guard dog.”
If the vampire thought he could make a little sport for himself by getting rise out of Gabriel he had another think coming. Gabriel is the type that burns slow – so slow, I wonder sometimes if he’s got a pulse.
“What is your business, vampire?” I asked.
“If you are here, then you know my business,” he said. He raised an eyebrow at me. “You will not interfere?”
“You know I am bound against it,” I said, and there was a little shivering of magic as I said it, as if the source of my power was affirming the truth of that statement.
That was one of the suck things about being an Agent. I saw a lot of death, and most of those deaths would break my heart if I let them. Stupid accidents, horrific murders, deaths of children and young mothers and college kids before their time. But it was not for me to judge which lives should be saved. If their name was on my list, then their death was fated and I was bound not to interfere. I’d learned early on to adopt a circle-of-life attitude for my own sanity. It didn’t mean that I liked it.
The vampire sidled a little closer to me, and I could almost feel Gabriel’s hackles rise. He loves me, he can’t have me, but he does not like other men coming near me. If Gabriel had his way there would be a 36-inch man-free radius around me at all times.
“I have heard stories of your beauty,” the vampire purred. His nostrils flared again. “I see that they are not exaggerated.”
I crossed my arms. My beauty is so not legendary. “Do I look like I just fell off the turnip truck? Get lost. I’m not the helpless victim you’re looking for.”
I saw a glint of fang as he stepped closer. He seemed hypnotized by some scent. “But the blood of angels…I have always wanted…and you are Lucifer’s own…”
I opened my palm in front of me, extended my will, and a little ball of blue flame about the size of a baseball hovered above my hand. “I understand that fire is unpleasant for vampires.”
The vampire hissed and backed away several feet. He shook his head, seeming to come out of a trance. For a moment I thought he would try again, but then he appeared to think better of it.
“Perhaps you are right,” he said, regaining his composure. “There must be easy prey awaiting me if you are here.”
I closed my fist and the ball of nightfire disappeared, leaving behind a lingering trace of sulfur. I flicked my fingers at the vampire. “Move along, then.”
He gave me a sarcastic bow and continued past us. Gabriel stared stonily at the vampire’s back as he went by. A few feet past us, the vampire stopped. I couldn’t see his face but I was sure he was scenting the air. I felt the thrum of magic that told me a soul was approaching that was marked for death. A moment later a too-skinny blonde came tottering into the alley on four-inch heels.
I sighed and slipped back into the shadows. I didn’t need to see what happened next. I just had to be there to pick up the pieces, like always.

About an hour later I was flying home. Gabriel met me in the air about half a mile away from the Door. For reasons that we don’t understand, Gabriel can’t come within a certain radius of the Door. This tends to make him annoyed, since he is charged with keeping me safe at all times. However, other non-Agents seem to be bound by the same restriction. None of my enemies have been able to cross the invisible line that keeps Gabriel from the Door. I know because I have seen some of them try.
We were about ten minutes from home when I saw it. A flash of green light somewhere on the city streets below, a pulse so large I was surprised that it didn’t wake up everyone in a four-block radius. Then the shockwave hit us.
Gabriel and I were thrown upward by a wave of energy that emanated from the pulse. I let it pass through me instead of struggling against it. As I relaxed, the magical energy inside the shockwave spread through me, and I cried out. There was malice in that magic, a sense of wrongness that chilled my heart.
The wave passed through me, but I was frozen by fear. I had felt something like this before, when Ramuell the nephilim had been released from his prison to hunt and kill me. It was a sense that the natural order had been upended, that death stalked without plan or mercy.
But Ramuell was dead. I had killed him myself. How could this be happening again?
I thought all of this in an instant, but an instant of immobility in the air can kill you. I heard Gabriel’s anguished voice calling my name. I shook my head, realized that I was free falling, my face turned towards the sky. I tried to flap my wings, to turn over and right myself, but my wings had disappeared. They do that, so that I can look like a normal human most of the time. They only appear when I need them for a magical reason, like when I’m carrying out my Agent duties.
But the shockwave had temporarily knocked out my magic, like an electrical surge will cause a fuse to blow. I tried to stay calm, to concentrate on the power inside me, but I was gathering speed. I could see Gabriel’s face, white and strained, as he arrowed towards me in the air, but I was falling too fast. He wasn’t going to make it. I closed my eyes.
And then I was plucked from the air by a pair of strong arms, and I heard a grunt as my speed was arrested. I opened my eyes to see a pair of bright green ones flashing at me through wire-rimmed glasses.
“Next time you might want to try a parachute,” J.B. said as he fluttered us slowly to the ground.
I opened my mouth to speak, to thank him, and was horrified to feel tears pricking my eyes.
“Hey,” J.B. said, and cuddled me closer. “Hey, it’s OK.”
I decided it was easier to cry it out than try to talk through suppressed tears. I buried my face in his t-shirt. He said nothing, only held me there until I lifted my face and sniffled.
“Better?” he asked.
I nodded.
“You can put her down now,” Gabriel said, and his voice had a note of steel.
I looked in the direction of his voice and saw him standing a few feet away, arms locked against his sides as if he were keeping himself from pummeling J.B.
J.B’s arms tightened around me. “Finders keepers. I didn’t see you keeping her from turning into scrambled eggs.”
Gabriel stepped forward. I could see stars blazing in his dark eyes, always a sign of trouble. Like I said, Gabriel is a slow burn. But when he explodes you’d better get the hell out of the way.
“Put her down, human. You’re squashing my ear,” a muffled voice said from inside my coat.
“Beezle!” I gasped. “I forgot he was in there.”
J.B. reluctantly released me, his hands lingering just a moment too long at my back. I would be flattered except that I knew at least part of the reason he did it was to piss off Gabriel.
A few months ago J.B. was my boss, and we didn’t get along. At all. But J.B. had helped Gabriel and I get though a demon attack on the Agency, and in the process we’d developed a kind of friendship. The attack had taken out a lot of the upper management and J.B. had been promoted by virtue of being one of the few supervisors left standing. Demon encounters plus the promotion seemed to have removed the stick that had formerly been lodged up his ass. He was a lot nicer these days.
He’d also shocked me by asking me out on a date. I’d refused, but he’d taken my refusal with surprising grace. It’s not that I wasn’t attracted to J.B. – I was, anything human would be – it was just that my confusing relationship with Gabriel seemed to preclude the possibility of having a confusing relationship with J.B.
Beezle poked his head out, looking distinctly disgruntled. “What in the name of the four hells happened? What’s J.B. doing here? Why aren’t we at home?”
“You didn’t feel that electro-pulse thingy?” I asked. “You didn’t feel us falling out of the sky?”
“I was napping,” Beezle said.
“Napping,” J.B. said in disbelief.
“You can just keep that disrespectful tone out of your voice, Jacob Benjamin. I’m an old gargoyle. And what is that horrible smell?”
Now that Beezle mentioned it, I did notice a distinctly malodorous scent lingering in the alley. And something else. A trace of cinnamon.
“Something angelic was here,” I said.
“How do you know?” J.B. asked.
“Whenever something of an angelic bloodline uses its powers I always smell a trace of cinnamon.”
I started to move cautiously in Gabriel’s direction. It seemed the smell was coming from just beyond him. J.B. followed.
“And there was something else, when the pulse happened. Did you feel it?” I looked questioningly at Gabriel, who was still giving J.B. the hairy eyeball. I saw him take a deep breath and refocus his attention on me.
“Yes. A sense of evil. It felt like…”
“…Ramuell,” I said at the same time.
I felt J.B. start next to me. “Ramuell? That nephilim that you killed?”
Gabriel nodded. “I do not know how it could be. Another nephilim could not have broken free from the Forbidden Lands. Lucifer persuaded all of the Fallen to give some of their power to redouble the creatures’ bindings. It would take more than the power of a single angel or demon to free even one of them. Even I could not do it now, despite my bloodline.”
“And it can’t be Ramuell. He’s dead.”
“Are you sure?” J.B. asked.
I thought of Ramuell burning molecule by molecule, dissolving before my eyes until the last of his essence was gone and the souls that were bound within him were released.
“I’m sure,” I replied grimly.
We crept carefully through the alley. I wasn’t sure where we were – Chicago looks pretty much the same when all you see are dumpsters and the backsides of brick buildings. We had been flying over the north side but the fall had disoriented me.
“Where were you coming from, J.B.?” I whispered as we crept closer to the source of the smell. The odor had to be amazingly powerful to cut through the cold air.
“Dropoff, same as you,” he replied.
“I thought that a regional supervisor would get to delegate the scut work,” I teased.
J.B. shrugged. “The new Midwestern supervisor wants us to do field work. He wants us to stay in touch with our roots or something. Anyway, I saw you flying back and was trying to catch up when that…thing happened. How come you fell out of the sky? What happened to your wings?”
“I don’t know,” I said slowly. “It was like that pulse kind of short-circuited my magic, and when that happened my wings disappeared.”
“That is dangerous,” said Gabriel. “If your enemies were to learn that such a thing could disable your abilities, even temporarily…”
He trailed off. I didn’t need him to elaborate. My enemies, which are many and mostly inherited from conflicts that my father Azazel and grandfather Lucifer created, would turn me into Korean barbecue in the blink of an eye if they thought I had a weakness.
“Let’s not worry about that right now,” I said brightly, trying not to think of my half-brother Antares and his personal vendetta against me. Antares would be more than delighted to short-circuit my powers.
The alley came to a T-junction just as we passed out of the light of a streetlamp. It was pitch black in both directions, the only light coming from the streets beyond. I wondered what happened to the rest of the streetlights.
The smell was nearly overwhelming now. It was something rotted and metallic, and there was a distinct scent of burned fur. Underneath it all was a trace of scorched cinnamon and sulfur – the smell that I associated with Ramuell.
I opened my palm and tried to create the same blue ball of flame that had scared away the vampire earlier. All that came out were a few blue sparks.
“I guess I’m still broken,” I said, and tried not to panic. I had no idea if the effects of the pulse were permanent. “Gabriel, can you?”
A moment later the alley was illuminated by nightfire. Gabriel is a more skilled practitioner than I, and so was able to send the ball of flame ahead of him instead of holding it in his hand. The light danced along down the right turn of the T-junction until I gasped. Gabriel raised the light up higher and turned up the illumination with a murmured word. J.B. covered his mouth beside me and made a retching noise.
It was difficult to make sense of what my eyes were seeing. There was blood – lots of blood, more blood than I thought could possibly be inside one human. And there were parts that were recognizable was human – a tibia, an ulna, a femur – all skinned but with small bits of flesh clinging to the bone. There was a torso that looked as though it had been through a shredder, and some scraps of cloth that might have been a flannel shirt.
But there was no head. And there was a hand that looked almost completely human save the fact that it was covered in fur.
“It’s a werewolf,” I said, trying not to gag.
“What could have done that to a werewolf?” Beezle asked.
“Another wolf?” J.B. said, speaking through his hand.
I shook my head. “There’s not usually that much disparity in wolf strength. Sure, the alpha and his lieutenants will be stronger than the other wolves, but not so much that one wolf could tear apart another like this. And where is the head?”
“More importantly, where is the Agent? This death wasn’t in my paperwork for the week,” J.B. said.
The implications were clear. If the death was not on file, then it was not meant to be. It was a death outside the natural order. And the last time there had been a death outside the natural order was when Ramuell had cut a swath through the innocent of this city.
“It can’t be,” I said as Gabriel stared at me. “It can’t. I killed him. If there’s one thing I’m sure of, it’s that I killed Ramuell. Lucifer’s been dangling it over my head ever since.”
“Then it must be another nephilim,” Gabriel said slowly.
“You just said that couldn’t happen,” J.B. said.
“Do you have another explanation, Agent?”
“No, but I’m not the one calling Maddy a liar.”
Gabriel narrowed his eyes. “I did not call Madeline a liar.”
“You implied it,” J.B. fired back.
“You’d better do something before this turns into a scene from a high school romcom,” Beezle muttered.
I stepped forward, intending to get between them and push them apart – they were practically nose-to-nose – when I heard somebody groaning. I froze, trying to determine the location of the noise but I couldn’t pick it out over the sound of bickering.
“Shut up,” I snapped, and both of them turned to stare at me. “Somebody else is here.”
I heard the groaning again, very faint, further along the alley and closer to the street. I started forward and Gabriel gripped my arm.
“Wait. It may be a trap,” Gabriel said. “Stay behind me.”
“Because I’m small and helpless?” I asked, annoyed.
“Because your powers do not seem to be functioning normally right now,” he answered reasonably.
I supposed I couldn’t argue with that even if it did make me feel useless.
J.B. took up a position behind me and we proceeded slowly toward the sound, picking our way carefully through the remains of the werewolf. I felt things squishing beneath my boots and tried not to think about what I was doing. My body thrummed with tension. What was waiting for us? Another of this creature’s victims, or the creature itself?
Gabriel directed the ball of nightfire toward the sound. There were white feathers splashed with red scattered around just past the gore from the werewolf. A bloodied hand came into view, then an arm, then a gigantic pair of white wings covering a body lying prone on the ground. A golden-haired head was just visible.
“It’s an angel,” I said.
“Or something that looks like one,” Gabriel agreed. “Gargoyle?”
Beezle squinted, his clawed hands gripping the lapel of my coat, and I knew that he was looking through the layers of reality to find the creature’s essence.
“It’s an angel.” Beezle nudged me with a sharp little elbow. “See, I’m handy to have around.”
“Sometimes,” I agreed.
Gabriel signaled to me to stay behind and J.B. put his hand on my shoulder to make sure that I understood. I shrugged off his touch, resenting their high-handedness. I wasn’t stupid. I knew that I wasn’t up to tangling with anything supernatural at the moment.
My bodyguard approached the body carefully, knelt beside the angel and rolled the creature to its back. The angel’s face was splattered with blood and there was a large and ugly gash across his bare chest.
Gabriel beckoned the ball of hellfire closer to him. “It’s Baraqiel.”
“What’s he doing here?” asked Beezle, surprise evident in his voice.
“Who’s Baraqiel?” J.B. and I asked together.
“Lucifer’s personal messenger,” Beezle said.
I wondered what Lucifer was up to now. Why was his personal messenger lying wounded in an alley only a few feet away from the mangled corpse of a werewolf? Had Baraqiel just been in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was he the werewolf’s killer?
Gabriel laid his hands on the wound and the alley grew brighter as the light of the sun came from his palms. The air filled with scent of apple pie baking – a smell that was unique to Gabriel.
Baraqiel gasped for air and his eyes flew open as Gabriel lifted his hands away from the angel’s chest. The wound was healed.
“Gabriel?” he asked, his gaze confused and frantic. “Where am I? Where is he?”
“Where is who?” I asked.
Baraqiel shook his head and sat up, staring at me. His eyes were a startling silver-blue that looked almost clear. Those eyes made me shiver. The effect of pale eyes against his blood-covered face was ghastly. He pushed up from the ground and wobbled as he attempted to stand.
Gabriel rose beside him and placed a steadying hand on Baraqiel’s shoulder. “Be at peace. You need to rest. You are still weak.”
Baraqiel shook his head, still staring at me. “There is no time. You are Azazel’s daughter?”
“Yes,” I said.
“You must go. Samiel is coming for you.”
A cave in an ash-burned land. A flash of green eyes, alight with hatred and madness.
“Samiel,” I breathed.
“Who’s he now?” J.B. asked, obviously bewildered.
A child of an angel and a nephilim. A child that would have every reason for vengeance against me. A child that I had nearly forgotten.
My voice was barely more than a whisper. “Ramuell’s son.”

I love to read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I have about 25 magazine subscriptions, ranging in various topics from hockey to astronomy to running to cooking to fitness. I also have a gigantic to-be-read pile of fiction and nonfiction books that is getting more gigantic every day, because I now buy way more books than I actually have time to read.

When I am writing a new novel I can read fiction until I get about a third of the way through the book. At that point I stop reading fiction until I’m done with the first draft. I don’t like to be unconsciously influenced by other writers when I’m trying to hammer out the story. I’ll switch over to reading nonfiction – again, just about anything will do as long as it catches my eye. The next two books in the nonfiction heap are Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and Flower Confidential by Amy Stewart.

I just recently finished writing the second book of the Madeline Black series and haven’t gotten too deeply into writing the third so I am trying to cram as much fiction into this period as possible.

Right now I am in the middle of Jim Butcher’s Side Jobs, a collection of short stories from the Dresden Files. I had read many of these stories before in other anthologies but it’s been fun to go back and revisit Harry-through-the-years. The collection also features one new story, which takes place after the most recent Dresden Files novel Changes. I’m trying to work my way slowly through the book so that I can savor the new story when I get to it. Butcher is one my favorite writers and it’s such a treat to get an extra Dresden story when he normally only releases one Dresden novel per year.